Asian Overground

UNESCO Courier, July, 2000 by Amy Otchet

The contradictions of Europe's rage for ethnic exoticism take centre stage in an interview with Pandit G of Asian Dub Foundation, a UK band serving up a searing mix of jungle rhythms, rap and 'traditional' sounds steeped in social justice

The global music industry makes a fortune by mixing various strands of music, often traditional, with genres like hip-hop or techno. Is this a replay of classic capitalist exploitation--extract raw materials, package and sell them back to the "natives"?

People have always mixed music from elsewhere and turned it into their own style. For example, bhangra [now very fashionably sampled] is really an indigenous form of Punjabi folk music created in Britain (see p.49). The early migrants from the Asian subcontinent largely came to Britain to work in cotton and textile mills after the war, particularly in the mid-to-late 50s. Many came from Punjab, which straddles the border with Pakistan. So a generation coming right up to the late 60s was listening to Punjabi folk music but mixing it with the dominant music form of the time, rock. That meant using electric guitars, drum kits as well as traditional instruments. What used to be a big musical troupe could be replaced with technology and just three or four members.

But on the opposite pole, you always find people out to exploit ethnicity or exoticism. In Britain, why do musicians like Kula Shaker [a neo-hippie rock band] need to go to India to find inspiration or symbolism? Why couldn't they have gone to places like Southall [an Asian neighbourhood] on their doorstep in London?

What do you think of "Asian Kool"--or the current rage for Indian-inspired music and fashion?

We could be talking about Asian Kool, Caribbean Kool or African American Kool. The people pushing this kind of thing have recognised that there is no strong white Western notion of cool amongst youth. Largely black identity is mixed up with being anti-establishment. Exoticism makes this idea sell a bit but it'll only be forgotten in a few years time.

In the UK, you'll see people in the streets wearing their little bindis on their foreheads and thinking they've made an anti-racist statement. But they wouldn't talk with Asian people working in a cornershop. By focusing on the exoticism, people can say, "These Indians don't mind being poor because they're spiritual."

What do you think of the "New Asian Underground"--a tag often attached to Asian Dub Foundation (ADF)?

It's an easy sound-bite to market the music. But we have to take a British perspective because of the history of colonialism. White society in the UK largely sees the Asian community as being homogeneous. Yet the handful of musicians that make up this "Asian Underground" can be Muslim, Hindu, Christian, Sikh or Buddhist and [originally] come from a geographic area three times bigger than the UK.

"We ain't ethnic, exotic or eclectic. The only 'e' we use is electric," rhymes a line from an ADF song. Do you ever feel the burden of representing an ethnic community?

We only represent ourselves. There is a line precisely on that from our album, Rafi's Revenge: "Culture is always on the move. There is no fixed point." We can also hold this up to white society, which imagines an ideal time when there was some pure British society--which never was. Just like there was never a pure Indian society.

We won't accept any pigeonholes. The tag that gets used most to describe us is: political band. We get journalists saying, "Once you get through the politics, the album isn't bad." We believe that everything is political. Five Asians gettin' on stage, playin' guitar and sampler, is political.

You've said that ADF has never been directly censored because of its strong anti-racist political platform[*], but how can the mainstream media and music industry indirectly stifle a group's message?

A backlash is slowly set up. First the media presents radical music as something new. Even though what's new is that the political platform is reaching a wider audience. But by reaching more people, you upset the status quo, which doesn't sell advertising copy. So what does the press do? They set you up as celebrities, isolate you and then try to crush you.

It wouldn't be direct censorship from the record company--you'd just find that your record isn't available in the shops. You don't get any tour support. There's many ways of stopping a band from reaching a broad audience.

(*.) Among its many anti-racist activities, ADF has spearheaded the international campaign to free British citizen Satpal Ram, who many believe has been unjustly imprisoned for defending himself against a racially motivated attack by six men in Birmingham in 1986.